The Talisman

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The rough eloquence and determined expression of the military
monarch at once roused the drooping spirits of the Crusaders,
reanimated their devotion, and, fixing their attention on the
principal object of the expedition, made most of them who were
present blush for having been moved by such petty subjects of
complaint as had before engrossed them. Eye caught fire from
eye, voice lent courage to voice. They resumed, as with one
accord, the war-cry with which the sermon of Peter the Hermit was
echoed back, and shouted aloud, "Lead us on, gallant Lion's-heart; none so worthy to lead where brave men
follow. Lead us
on--to Jerusalem--to Jerusalem! It is the will of God--it is the
will of God! Blessed is he who shall lend an arm to its
fulfilment!"

The shout, so suddenly and generally raised, was heard beyond the
ring of sentinels who guarded the pavilion of Council, and spread
among the soldiers of the host, who, inactive and dispirited by
disease and climate, had begun, like their leaders, to droop in
resolution; but the reappearance of Richard in renewed vigour,
and the well-known shout which echoed from the assembly of the
princes, at once rekindled their enthusiasm, and thousands and
tens of thousands answered with the same shout of "Zion, Zion!
War, war! Instant battle with the infidels! It is the will of
God--it is the will of God!"

The acclamations from without increased in their turn the
enthusiasm which prevailed within the pavilion. Those who did
not actually catch the flame were afraid--at least for the time
--to seem colder than others. There was no more speech except of
a proud advance towards Jerusalem upon the expiry of the truce,
and the measures to be taken in the meantime for supplying and
recruiting the army. The Council broke up, all apparently filled
with the same enthusiastic purpose--which, however, soon faded
in the bosom of most, and never had an existence in that of
others.

Of the latter class were the Marquis Conrade and the Grand Master
of the Templars, who retired together to their quarters ill at
ease, and malcontent with the events of the day.

"I ever told it to thee," said the latter, with the cold,
sardonic expression peculiar to him, "that Richard would burst
through the flimsy wiles you spread for him, as would a lion
through a spider's web. Thou seest he has but to speak, and his
breath agitates these fickle fools as easily as the whirlwind
catcheth scattered straws, and sweeps them together, or disperses
them at its pleasure."

"When the blast has passed away," said Conrade, "the straws,
which it made dance to its pipe, will settle to earth again."

"But knowest thou not besides," said the Templar, "that it seems,
if this new purpose of conquest shall be abandoned and pass away,
and each mighty prince shall again be left to such guidance as
his own scanty brain can supply, Richard may yet probably become
King of Jerusalem by compact, and establish those terms of treaty
with the Soldan which thou thyself thought'st him so likely to
spurn at?"

"Now, by Mahound and Termagaunt, for Christian oaths are out of
fashion," said Conrade, "sayest thou the proud King of England
would unite his blood with a heathen Soldan? My policy threw in
that ingredient to make the whole treaty an abomination to him.
As bad for us that he become our master by an agreement, as by
victory."

"Thy policy hath ill calculated Richard's digestion," answered
the Templar; "I know his mind by a whisper from the Archbishop.
And then thy master-stroke respecting yonder banner--it has
passed off with no more respect than two cubits of embroidered
silk merited. Marquis Conrade, thy wit begins to halt; I will
trust thy finespun measures no longer, but will try my own.
Knowest thou not the people whom the Saracens call Charegites?"

"Surely," answered the Marquis; "they are desperate and besotted
enthusiasts, who devote their lives to the advancement of
religion---somewhat like Templars, only they are never known to
pause in the race of their calling."

"Jest not," answered the scowling monk. "Know that one of these
men has set down in his bloody vow the name of the Island Emperor
yonder, to be hewn down as the chief enemy of the Moslem faith."

"A most judicious paynim," said Conrade. "May Mohammed send him
his paradise for a reward!"

"He was taken in the camp by one of our squires, and in private
examination frankly avowed his fixed and determined purpose to
me," said the Grand Master.

"Now the heavens pardon them who prevented the purpose of this
most judicious Charegite!" answered Conrade.

"He is my prisoner," added the Templar, "and secluded from speech
with others, as thou mayest suppose; but prisons have been
broken--"

"Chains left unlocked, and captives have escaped," answered the
Marquis. "It is an ancient saying, no sure dungeon but the
grave."

"When loose, he resumes his quest," continued the military
priest; "for it is the nature of this sort of blood hound never
to quit the suit of the prey he has once scented."

"Say no more of it," said the Marquis; "I see thy policy--it is
dreadful, but the emergency is imminent."

"I only told thee of it," said the Templar, "that thou mayest
keep thyself on thy guard; for the uproar will be dreadful, and
there is no knowing on whom the English may vent their rage. Ay,
and there is another risk. My page knows the counsels of this
Charegite," he continued; "and, moreover, he is a peevish, self-willed fool, whom I would I were rid of, as
he thwarts me by
presuming to see with his own eyes, not mine. But our holy order
gives me power to put a remedy to such inconvenience. Or stay--
the Saracen may find a good dagger in his cell, and I warrant you
he uses it as he breaks forth, which will be of a surety so soon
as the page enters with his food."

"It will give the affair a colour," said Conrade; "and yet--"

"YET and BUT," said the Templar, "are words for fools; wise men
neither hesitate nor retract--they resolve and they execute."

CHAPTER XX.

When beauty leads the lion in her toils,
Such are her charms, he dare not raise his mane,
Far less expand the terror of his fangs.
So great Alcides made his club a distaff,
And spun to please fair Omphale. ANONYMOUS.

Richard, the unsuspicious object of the dark treachery detailed
in the closing part of the last chapter, having effected, for the
present at least, the triumphant union of the Crusading princes
in a resolution to prosecute the war with vigour, had it next at
heart to establish tranquillity in his own family; and, now that
he could judge more temperately, to inquire distinctly into the
circumstances leading to the loss of his banner, and the nature
and the extent of the connection betwixt his kinswoman Edith and
the banished adventurer from Scotland.

Accordingly, the Queen and her household were startled with a
visit from Sir Thomas de Vaux, requesting the present attendance
of the Lady Calista of Montfaucon, the Queen's principal bower-woman, upon King Richard.

"What am I to say, madam?" said the trembling attendant to the
Queen, "He will slay us all."

"Nay, fear not, madam," said De Vaux. "His Majesty hath spared
the life of the Scottish knight, who was the chief offender, and
bestowed him upon the Moorish physician. He will not be severe
upon a lady, though faulty."

"Devise some cunning tale, wench," said Berengaria. "My husband
hath too little time to make inquiry into the truth."

"Tell the tale as it really happened," said Edith, "lest I tell
it for thee."

"With humble permission of her Majesty," said De Vaux, "I would
say Lady Edith adviseth well; for although King Richard is
pleased to believe what it pleases your Grace to tell him, yet I
doubt his having the same deference for the Lady Calista, and in
this especial matter."

"The Lord of Gilsland is right," said the Lady Calista, much
agitated at the thoughts of the investigation which was to take
place; "and besides, if I had presence of mind enough to forge a
plausible story, beshrew me if I think I should have the courage
to tell it."

In this candid humour, the Lady Calista was conducted by De Vaux
to the King, and made, as she had proposed, a full confession of
the decoy by which the unfortunate Knight of the Leopard had been
induced to desert his post; exculpating the Lady Edith, who, she
was aware, would not fail to exculpate herself, and laying the
full burden on the Queen, her mistress, whose share of the
frolic, she well knew, would appear the most venial in the eyes
of Coeur de Lion. In truth, Richard was a fond, almost a
uxorious husband. The first burst of his wrath had long since
passed away, and he was not disposed severely to censure what
could not now be amended. The wily Lady Calista, accustomed from
her earliest childhood to fathom the intrigues of a court, and
watch the indications of a sovereign's will, hastened back to the
Queen with the speed of a lapwing, charged with the King's
commands that she should expect a speedy visit from him; to which
the bower-lady added a commentary founded on her own observation,
tending to show that Richard meant just to preserve so much
severity as might bring his royal consort to repent of her
frolic, and then to extend to her and all concerned his gracious
pardon.

"Sits the wind in that corner, wench?" said the Queen, much
relieved by this intelligence. "Believe me that, great commander
as he is, Richard will find it hard to circumvent us in this
matter, and that, as the Pyrenean shepherds are wont to say in my
native Navarre, Many a one comes for wool, and goes back shorn."

Having possessed herself of all the information which Calista
could communicate, the royal Berengaria arrayed herself in her
most becoming dress, and awaited with confidence the arrival of
the heroic Richard.

He arrived, and found himself in the situation of a prince
entering an offending province, in the confidence that his
business will only be to inflict rebuke, and receive submission,
when he unexpectedly finds it in a state of complete defiance and
insurrection. Berengaria well knew the power of her charms and
the extent of Richard's affection, and felt assured that she
could make her own terms good, now that the first tremendous
explosion of his anger had expended itself without mischief. Far
from listening to the King's intended rebuke, as what the levity
of her conduct had justly deserved, she extenuated, nay, defended
as a harmless frolic, that which she was accused of. She denied,
indeed, with many a pretty form of negation, that she had
directed Nectabanus absolutely to entice the knight farther than
the brink of the Mount on which he kept watch--and, indeed, this
was so far true, that she had not designed Sir Kenneth to be
introduced into her tent--and then, eloquent in urging her own
defence, the Queen was far more so in pressing upon Richard the
charge of unkindness, in refusing her so poor a boon as the life
of an unfortunate knight, who, by her thoughtless prank, had been
brought within the danger of martial law. She wept and sobbed
while she enlarged on her husband's obduracy on this score, as a
rigour which had threatened to make her unhappy for life,
whenever she should reflect that she had given, unthinkingly, the
remote cause for such a tragedy. The vision of the slaughtered
victim would have haunted her dreams--nay, for aught she knew,
since such things often happened, his actual spectre might have
stood by her waking couch. To all this misery of the mind was
she exposed by the severity of one who, while he pretended to
dote upon her slightest glance, would not forego one act of poor
revenge, though the issue was to render her miserable.

All this flow of female eloquence was accompanied with the usual
arguments of tears and sighs, and uttered with such tone and
action as seemed to show that the Queen's resentment arose
neither from pride nor sullenness, but from feelings hurt at
finding her consequence with her husband less than she had
expected to possess.

The good King Richard was considerably embarrassed. He tried in
vain to reason with one whose very jealousy of his affection
rendered her incapable of listening to argument, nor could he
bring himself to use the restraint of lawful authority to a
creature so beautiful in the midst of her unreasonable
displeasure. He was therefore reduced to the defensive,
endeavoured gently to chide her suspicions and soothe her
displeasure, and recalled to her mind that she need not look back
upon the past with recollections either of remorse or
supernatural fear, since Sir Kenneth was alive and well, and had
been bestowed by him upon the great Arabian physician, who,
doubtless, of all men, knew best how to keep him living. But
this seemed the unkindest cut of all, and the Queen's sorrow was
renewed at the idea of a Saracen--a mediciner--obtaining a boon
for which, with bare head and on bended knee, she had petitioned
her husband in vain. At this new charge Richard's patience began
rather to give way, and he said, in a serious tone of voice,
"Berengaria, the physician saved my life. If it is of value in
your eyes, you will not grudge him a higher recompense than the
only one I could prevail on him to accept."

The Queen was satisfied she had urged her coquettish displeasure
to the verge of safety.

"My Richard," she said, "why brought you not that sage to me,
that England's Queen might show how she esteemed him who could
save from extinction the lamp of chivalry, the glory of England,
and the light of poor Berengaria's life and hope?"

In a word, the matrimonial dispute was ended; but, that some
penalty might be paid to justice, both King and Queen accorded in
laying the whole blame on the agent Nectabanus, who (the Queen
being by this time well weary of the poor dwarf's humour) was,
with his royal consort Guenevra, sentenced to be banished from
the Court; and the unlucky dwarf only escaped a supplementary
whipping, from the Queen's assurances that he had already
sustained personal chastisement. It was decreed further that, as
an envoy was shortly to be dispatched to Saladin, acquainting him
with the resolution of the Council to resume hostilities so soon
as the truce was ended, and as Richard proposed to send a
valuable present to the Soldan, in acknowledgment of the high
benefit he had derived from the services of El Hakim, the two
unhappy creatures should be added to it as curiosities, which,
from their extremely grotesque appearance, and the shattered
state of their intellect, were gifts that might well pass between
sovereign and sovereign.

Richard had that day yet another female encounter to sustain; but
he advanced to it with comparative indifference, for Edith,
though beautiful and highly esteemed by her royal relative--nay,
although she had from his unjust suspicions actually sustained
the injury of which Berengaria only affected to complain--still
was neither Richard's wife nor mistress, and he feared her
reproaches less, although founded in reason, than those of the
Queen, though unjust and fantastical. Having requested to speak
with her apart, he was ushered into her apartment, adjoining that
of the Queen, whose two female Coptish slaves remained on their
knees in the most remote corner during the interview. A thin
black veil extended its ample folds over the tall and graceful
form of the high-born maiden, and she wore not upon her person
any female ornament of what kind soever. She arose and made a low
reverence when Richard entered, resumed her seat at his command,
and, when he sat down beside her, waited, without uttering a
syllable, until he should communicate his pleasure.

Richard, whose custom it was to be familiar with Edith, as their
relationship authorized, felt this reception chilling, and opened
the conversation with some embarrassment.

"Our fair cousin," he at length said, "is angry with us; and we
own that strong circumstances have induced us, without cause, to
suspect her of conduct alien to what we have ever known in her
course of life. But while we walk in this misty valley of
humanity, men will mistake shadows for substances. Can my fair
cousin not forgive her somewhat vehement kinsman Richard?"

"Who can refuse forgiveness to RICHARD," answered Edith,
"provided Richard can obtain pardon of the KING?"

"Come, my kinswoman," replied Coeur de Lion, "this is all too
solemn. By Our Lady, such a melancholy countenance, and this
ample sable veil, might make men think thou wert a new-made
widow, or had lost a betrothed lover, at least. Cheer up! Thou
hast heard, doubtless, that there is no real cause for woe; why,
then, keep up the form of mourning?"

"For the departed honour of Plantagenet--for the glory which hath
left my father's house."

Richard frowned. "Departed honour! glory which hath left our
house!" he repeated angrily. "But my cousin Edith is
privileged. I have judged her too hastily; she has therefore a
right to deem of me too harshly. But tell me at least in what I
have faulted."

"Plantagenet," said Edith, "should have either pardoned an
offence, or punished it. It misbecomes him to assign free men,
Christians, and brave knights, to the fetters of the infidels.
It becomes him not to compromise and barter, or to grunt life
under the forfeiture of liberty. To have doomed the unfortunate
to death might have been severity, but had a show of justice; to
condemn him to slavery and exile was barefaced tyranny."

"I see, my fair cousin," said Richard, "you are of those pretty
ones who think an absent lover as bad as none, or as a dead one.
Be patient; half a score of light horsemen may yet follow and
redeem the error, if thy gallant have in keeping any secret which
might render his death more convenient than his banishment."

"Peace with thy scurrile jests!" answered Edith, colouring
deeply. "Think, rather, that for the indulgence of thy mood thou
hast lopped from this great enterprise one goodly limb, deprived
the Cross of one of its most brave supporters, and placed a
servant of the true God in the hands of the heathen; hast given,
too, to minds as suspicious as thou hast shown thine own in this
matter, some right to say that Richard Coeur de Lion banished the
bravest soldier in his camp lest his name in battle might match
his own."

"I--I!" exclaimed Richard, now indeed greatly moved--"am I one
to be jealous of renown? I would he were here to profess such an
equality! I would waive my rank and my crown, and meet him,
manlike, in the lists, that it might appear whether Richard
Plantagenet had room to fear or to envy the prowess of mortal
man. Come, Edith, thou think'st not as thou sayest. Let not
anger or grief for the absence of thy lover make thee unjust to
thy kinsman, who, notwithstanding all thy techiness, values thy
good report as high as that of any one living."

"The absence of my lover?" said the Lady Edith, "But yes, he may
be well termed my lover, who hath paid so dear for the title.
Unworthy as I might be of such homage, I was to him like a light,
leading him forward in the noble path of chivalry; but that I
forgot my rank, or that he presumed beyond his, is false, were a
king to speak it."

"My fair cousin," said Richard, "do not put words in my mouth
which I have not spoken. I said not you had graced this man
beyond the favour which a good knight may earn, even from a
princess, whatever be his native condition. But, by Our Lady, I
know something of this love-gear. It begins with mute respect
and distant reverence; but when opportunities occur, familiarity
increases, and so--But it skills not talking with one who thinks
herself wiser than all the world."

"My kinsman's counsels I willingly listen to, when they are
such," said Edith, "as convey no insult to my rank and
character."

"Kings, my fair cousin, do not counsel, but rather command," said
Richard.

"Soldans do indeed command," said Edith, "but it is because they
have slaves to govern."

"Come, you might learn to lay aside this scorn of Soldanrie, when
you hold so high of a Scot," said the King. "I hold Saladin to
be truer to his word than this William of Scotland, who must
needs be called a Lion, forsooth; he hath foully faulted towards
me in failing to send the auxiliary aid he promised. Let me tell
thee, Edith, thou mayest live to prefer a true Turk to a false
Scot."

"No--never!" answered Edith--"not should Richard himself embrace
the false religion, which he crossed the seas to expel from
Palestine."

"Thou wilt have the last word," said Richard, "and thou shalt
have it. Even think of me what thou wilt, pretty Edith. I shall
not forget that we are near and dear cousins."

So saying, he took his leave in fair fashion, but very little
satisfied with the result of his visit.

It was the fourth day after Sir Kenneth had been dismissed from
the camp, and King Richard sat in his pavilion, enjoying an
evening breeze from the west, which, with unusual coolness on her
wings, seemed breathed from merry England for the refreshment of
her adventurous Monarch, as he was gradually recovering the full
strength which was necessary to carry on his gigantic projects.
There was no one with him, De Vaux having been sent to Ascalon to
bring up reinforcements and supplies of military munition, and
most of his other attendants being occupied in different
departments, all preparing for the re-opening of hostilities, and
for a grand preparatory review of the army of the Crusaders,
which was to take place the next day. The King sat listening to
the busy hum among the soldiery, the clatter from the forges,
where horseshoes were preparing, and from the tents of the
armourers, who were repairing harness. The voice of the
soldiers, too, as they passed and repassed, was loud and
cheerful, carrying with its very tone an assurance of high and
excited courage, and an omen of approaching victory. While
Richard's ear drank in these sounds with delight, and while he
yielded himself to the visions of conquest and of glory which
they suggested, an equerry told him that a messenger from Saladin
waited without.

"Admit him instantly," said the King, "and with due honour,
Josceline."

The English knight accordingly introduced a person, apparently of
no higher rank than a Nubian slave, whose appearance was
nevertheless highly interesting. He was of superb stature and
nobly formed, and his commanding features, although almost jet-black, showed nothing of negro descent.
He wore over his coal-black locks a milk-white turban, and over his shoulders a short
mantle of the same colour, open in front and at the sleeves,
under which appeared a doublet of dressed leopard's skin reaching
within a handbreadth of the knee. The rest of his muscular
limbs, both legs and arms, were bare, excepting that he had
sandals on his feet, and wore a collar and bracelets of silver.
A straight broadsword, with a handle of box-wood and a sheath
covered with snakeskin, was suspended from his waist. In his
right hand he held a short javelin, with a broad, bright steel
head, of a span in length, and in his left he led by a leash of
twisted silk and gold a large and noble staghound.

The messenger prostrated himself, at the same time partially
uncovering his shoulders, in sign of humiliation, and having
touched the earth with his forehead, arose so far as to rest on
one knee, while he delivered to the King a silken napkin,
enclosing another of cloth of gold, within which was a letter
from Saladin in the original Arabic, with a translation into
Norman-English, which may be modernized thus:--

"Saladin, King of Kings, to Melech Ric, the Lion of England.
Whereas, we are informed by thy last message that thou hast
chosen war rather than peace, and our enmity rather than our
friendship, we account thee as one blinded in this matter, and
trust shortly to convince thee of thine error, by the help of our
invincible forces of the thousand tribes, when Mohammed, the
Prophet of God, and Allah, the God of the Prophet, shall judge
the controversy betwixt us. In what remains, we make noble
account of thee, and of the gifts which thou hast sent us, and of
the two dwarfs, singular in their deformity as Ysop, and mirthful
as the lute of Isaack. And in requital of these tokens from the
treasure-house of thy bounty, behold we have sent thee a Nubian
slave, named Zohauk, of whom judge not by his complexion,
according to the foolish ones of the earth, in respect the dark-rinded fruit hath the most exquisite flavour.
Know that he is
strong to execute the will of his master, as Rustan of Zablestan;
also he is wise to give counsel when thou shalt learn to hold
communication with him, for the Lord of Speech hath been stricken
with silence betwixt the ivory walls of his palace. We commend
him to thy care, hoping the hour may not be distant when he may
render thee good service. And herewith we bid thee farewell;
trusting that our most holy Prophet may yet call thee to a sight
of the truth, failing which illumination, our desire is for the
speedy restoration of thy royal health, that Allah may judge
between thee and us in a plain field of battle."

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